The chocolate cake was roughly based on the Portal recipe, except I was out ofwhipped cream, so I didn’t do the white dollops with cherries on top, or the candle. So it was really more like Black Forest cake.

I always stress out in the lead-up to these get-togethers. Is the house reasonably clean? (“I promise, this kitchen was clean-ish before I started frosting this cake…”) But then people come, and the conversation gets going, and it’s awesome.